


in the darkness (you shine)

by GrayWithAnA



Series: dreaming of eden [1]
Category: The Borgias (Showtime TV)
Genre: Biting, Double Penetration, F/M, Infidelity, Intercrural Sex, International Fanworks Day 2021, Jealousy, Knifeplay, M/M, Masochism, Masturbation, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Object Insertion, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Public Sex, Relationship Negotiation, Sibling Incest, Threesome - F/M/M, Under-negotiated Kink, Unsafe Sex, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:34:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29091366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayWithAnA/pseuds/GrayWithAnA
Summary: Cesare does not understand Lucrezia the first time she asks.
Relationships: Cesare Borgia/Lucrezia Borgia, Cesare Borgia/Lucrezia Borgia/Micheletto Corella, Cesare Borgia/Micheletto Corella, Lucrezia Borgia/Micheletto Corella
Series: dreaming of eden [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2178528
Comments: 14
Kudos: 17





	1. twilight

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [“What I Believe”](https://genius.com/Skillet-what-i-believe-lyrics) by Skillet.
> 
> This was inspired by [a kinkmeme prompt](https://borgiaskink.livejournal.com/3109.html?thread=325157#t325157), but I don’t know if it counts as a fill eight years later.
> 
> The only “on-screen” sexual incest is in Chapters 4 and 5, though it is referenced throughout. Read accordingly.
> 
> Your praise and con-crit are both cheerfully solicited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prologue. Full chapters to come ~~February 1st, 8th, and 15th~~ January 31st, February 7th, and February 14th.

Cesare does not understand Lucrezia the first time she asks. 

“Micheletto—as bodyguard? Of course, sis, but why? Have you reason to fear?” Already Cesare tenses in preparation, ready to leap from where he reclines on the bed and seek out the enemy. 

“Calm yourself, brother.” Curled under his arm, Lucrezia lays a hand on his chest, turns her cheek against his shoulder. “Not as bodyguard. As—” Cesare imagines he feels her face warming on his skin, “—as lover.” 

Cesare does not calm himself: restrains himself, rather. He must not lose his temper with her; he must not hurt her; he must not let her think she has hurt him. Still, his voice is near cracking when he manages, “Do I not love you?” 

What can Cesare do if she says so? Kill Micheletto? Even if Cesare tried, and he does not think he could, he has no hope of succeeding; every day on the training ground proves that. Kill himself, then, and sleep in unhallowed ground. It is what he deserves. 

Lucrezia sits upright, her fingers stealing along his neck to turn his chin towards her. With no candles lit, he sees only her shadow, the faintest outline of her features by the last lingering gleam of sunset. “But of course you do. As I do you. As I could never love another man.” 

“Then why?” The words do not come any easier. 

“You know I love my husband too.” 

“Yes.” Cesare cannot be more gracious than that. 

“Not as I do you. My husband is—is fine wood, perhaps. He is lovely and sturdy, in his way, but not a weapon.” Lucrezia traces her hand back down, following the length of Cesare’s arm and gripping the muscle there. “You, brother, are steel. Forged, fierce, and beautiful. And so I have both of you.” 

“What of Micheletto, then?” Still, Cesare cannot make his body unseize; his voice emerges tight from his throat. 

“An iron,” Lucrezia says after a pause, “or a poker, heated until it glows. Where you have made yourself a weapon, he is dangerous by his nature.” 

Cesare thinks of what Micheletto would do with a red-hot poker. Lucrezia does not know of which she speaks—but then again, maybe she does. “What need have you of such a thing, sis?” 

“I could hardly tend a fire without one, brother.” Lucrezia laughs a little and leans into him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. Of course she needs never tend her own fires. “To let me handle the danger from a safe distance…” 

Cesare can feel Lucrezia lose the metaphor, but he follows the shape of it. He kisses her forehead, resting there with his lips on damp skin, nose in her hair. She smells of perfume, as always, warm with spice; of the powdery sweetness of orris root; of his sweat; of sex. It is enough to calm him, finally. “I will raise it with him.” 

“Thank you,” Lucrezia says quietly. Only when Cesare feels her relax does he realize she has been holding herself as tense as he. “Sleep here with me tonight?” 

Cesare nods against her hair. Lucrezia does not often ask him to stay, too wary of a maid arriving before they wake. Anytime she does, his love for her fills him like light itself, a glow suffusing every inch of his being, chasing away the shadows. Tonight, it is so bright that it threatens to burn. He eases them both down the bed so he can fold her in his arms. 

Lucrezia tangles her hands with his and brings them to her mouth, kissing his fingers. Cesare cannot hear it, but feels her whisper, “I do love you, brother.” 

“As I do you,” he breathes into her curls. He hugs her tighter for a moment. “Sleep, sis. Dream.”


	2. day & night i

“Put an edge on this blade for me, Micheletto.”

Micheletto, standing at his table of tools, sets his own blades to the side as Cesare offers the handle of his dagger.

When Micheletto has taken the blade and turned away to wipe it with a cloth, Cesare adds, as if merely continuing a thought, “My sister would have you.”

A moment’s pause. “My lord?” Micheletto says. His voice betrays only mild curiosity, but Cesare saw his hand flinch, flex around the dagger: any man with a heartbeat less control would have dropped it.

The image of Micheletto so fumbling a weapon makes Cesare chuckle aloud. “Need I explain the mechanics?”

Micheletto resumes his cleaning and says, without turning, “Maybe you should. I do not want to misunderstand.” He puts the cloth down and takes up a sharpening stone, weighing it for a moment in his palm.

“I have not seen your women, Micheletto, but I do not think you do not have them. Surely your understanding is not in question.”

Micheletto looks up sharply, so sudden that Cesare checks over his shoulder to see they are still alone—but all Micheletto says is, “I must be discreet, my lord.” His thumb rubs small circles on the blade’s shoulder.

“So you must,” Cesare says slowly, certain that he is missing something.

Micheletto keeps looking at him. Finally, when Cesare fails to respond further, he turns back to his work, but continues, “Whores are not discreet enough for men like me. Not when the next man might pay them more to say whom they have seen.”

Cesare scrambles. “Have you not—need I truly explain the mechanics?” Conversations with Micheletto are like this sometimes, halting, only to bolt down unseen pathways and leave one clinging desperately to the saddle; as though, being ordinarily a man of so few words, Micheletto does not know quite what to do with more.

“You need not,” Micheletto says. His gaze does not budge from the table.

“Then what can you mean? Who is discreet enough for a—a man like you?”

Cesare has learned, over their acquaintance, to read even Michelett’s most muted reactions; he prides himself that he may the only man alive who can. Even so, he almost misses the way Micheletto twitches at his phrasing—almost. But he spies the movement, and when he does, it is as if he hears the words repeated aloud.

_A man like you._

“Oh,” Cesare says, dumbly. The first thought to enter his mind, though he has not remembered it in a long time now, is of Micheletto swinging gleefully up a pyre, torch in hand. “Savonarola?”

“Would have done the same to me if we had not got him first.” The taut line of Micheletto’s back is unmistakable as the raised hackles of a dog, ready equally to fight or flee, only waiting to be told which. Cesare has seen this look on Micheletto often enough: death follows swiftly on its heels.

So now it is Cesare’s turn for calm. He inhales deeply, sighs. “Why did you tell me that, Micheletto?”

“Unless I did misunderstand, my lord, you just asked me to fuck your sister. You might want to know, lest I corrupt her.”

Once, to save Lucrezia’s life, Micheletto butchered a maid like a deer to leave her as a decoy in Lucrezia’s bed—and when the assassin arrived, Micheletto beat the man’s skull to pulp on the floor. Cesare remembers the blood splashed over Micheletto’s brow that night: he remembers it as the first time he truly counted Micheletto one of the family. If Micheletto’s touch is corrupting, then they are all rotten through, but it should be plain to see they already were.

Cesare says, “You know I have committed a dozen different kinds of sodomy, only not with a man. You know Lucrezia and I—” His voice falters.

Micheletto shrugs, a quick hunch of his shoulders. “It is not the same.”

“I do not see how.”

Micheletto grunts in reply, drawing the knife over the sharpening stone with a singing scrape of metal.

“So?” Cesare asks. _Scrape_.

“So, my lord?” Micheletto repeats. _Scrape_.

“So my sister would have you. Would you have her?” _Scrape_.

“I am your man, not hers.” _Scra_ _-ape_. The pitch of the sound changes halfway through: Micheletto’s hand has trembled again, quickly controlled. Cesare notes it, though he does not know yet what to make of it.

“And if I would have it?”

Micheletto stops and turns to face Cesare, the dagger loose in his grasp. “I would caution you.”

“Why?”

“I could hurt her.”

Cesare’s hand makes a jump towards his sword before he can halt it; no matter how he trusts Micheletto, Cesare’s heart stands ready, always, to lunge to Lucrezia’s defense.

Micheletto watches him, unflinching. “Forgive me. I would not try to.” He switches the knife to his other hand and extends his palm into the light. The scars and calluses stand in sharp relief. The bloodstains are, for the moment, invisible. “But I think even the touch of a man like me might pain a woman like her.”

Cesare touches his fingertips to Micheletto’s hand—indeed, as rough as it looks. Micheletto allows him, and Cesare meets his eyes. “How difficult is it to keep a blade sharp, Micheletto?”

“That depends on the blade.”

“A ceremonial one. The most beautiful of all, never to be used in violence.”

“It would go dull if you looked at it cross.”

Cesare inclines his head towards the dagger in Micheletto’s other hand. “Is that blade dull?”

Micheletto does not break eye contact, nor blink; he lifts the knife to his palm and draws it smoothly across. Blood wells in its wake, a perfect crimson line. A single drop overspills the wound and makes its way to Cesare’s fingertip.

“Thus, you can be gentle,” Cesare says.

Silently, Micheletto withdraws his hand. Without thinking, Cesare brings his own hand to his mouth, sucking away the blood as he would from a cut. Micheletto looks away quickly, and the pieces fall together in Cesare’s head.

_I am your man, not hers._

Cesare lingers a few seconds, considering, as Micheletto resumes his work. He must not realize what Cesare has heard, or seen, however he might put it.

Well. If Cesare commands Micheletto’s lust as well as his loyalty, that is a good thing to know. As to Lucrezia, Micheletto protested only his unworthiness, no lack of desire. Knowing the depth of Micheletto’s care for his sister, Cesare guessed the conversation would proceed so—his own revelation, he did not guess, but that is irrelevant: Lucrezia will have her wish. He licks the last trace of blood from his finger and takes his leave.

* * *

Cesare wakes in the night. The world is untouched by dawn, unformed; his thoughts, too. He looks automatically to Micheletto’s pallet and sees it empty. _Where is he?_ Out drinking, spying, murdering. Fucking. Any. All. Cesare has never wondered before.

Cesare begins to wonder a great many things now, filtering through the shadows as he surfaces from sleep. The word, the shame, steals into his thoughts, where before he refused it entrance.

_Sodomite._

It buzzes in Cesare’s head with the persistence of an insect, and it perplexes him. He spoke truth earlier: he has committed a dozen different kinds of sodomy, and every other sin of lust besides—only not with a man.

 _Why not?_ Cesare thinks, and startles himself to wakefulness. He told Micheletto he does not see a difference—again, truth; in the bedchamber, Cesare cannot cast stones—yet the notion, applied to himself, has never occurred to him before.

Cesare thinks again, _Why not?_

A simple answer: Alexander, in whose image Cesare is made, to whom he confesses his sins. Alexander does not count strange flesh among his cravings, and so neither does Cesare. Easy, too, for Cesare to divulge his lusts to Alexander, more of a lecher even than he, but with a man—no, Alexander would not stand for it.

 _Perhaps,_ Cesare thinks wryly, _I should seek out a boy to fuck first, see how he takes that, before I—_

 _Oh_.

Cesare’s desire, itself unspoken, has been propelling his thoughts in vague, wandering tracks. Now it forms itself into a phrase.

_Before I let Micheletto have me._

Cesare turns the words over, stuporously slow. They relax him, peculiarly; his mind needs no longer churn for explanations, excuses. Sleep drags him back towards its sphere, and the shadows seem to take on a new tone, a darkness rich with suggestion. _Have me._

Cesare awoke with his cock full from sleep, and now he feels its pulse throughout his belly, his chest, his limbs, warm and weighty with blood. He needs no fantasy to conjure an image of Micheletto’s body against his, as often as he has felt it on the training ground; he knows the exact weight with which Micheletto can pin him, the roughness of Micheletto’s clothes, the restless stir of his muscles—the thick smell of his sweat, the way his breath quickens after long exertion.

Now Cesare imagines the same in his bed, imagines a nudge against his groin to answer his own half-hardness. The heat that flushes through him in response is suffocating, a breath drawn too near a fire. He shifts onto his front, and the scene in his mind rolls over accordingly, settling Micheletto at his back.

Cesare remembers Savonarola’s sermons, remembers how the sodomites of Florence are said to corrupt young boys. Surely the sodomites of Forlì do the same. Blind, he reaches for the jar of salve on his nightstand; Lucrezia left it there, after she complained of the roughness of his hands. He dips his fingers in it, scenting the air with beeswax and almond oil, then brings his hand behind himself.

The first clumsy, greasy touch sends a metallic pang of humiliation up Cesare’s throat, but—it is not unpleasant, the feeling of his fingers tracing untouched flesh; it sends a light, almost ticklish spark of pleasure through him. Sighing and shifting against the blankets, Cesare spreads his legs a little further, pushes a little more, and imagines it is Micheletto’s fingertip that enters him as he does. Instinct nudges him to rock his hand, edging his finger deeper and stretching himself in small pulses.

Cesare’s cock is hardening in earnest, and after an awkward shuffle, he figures out how to splay his legs, lying half on his side, so he can wrap his other hand around himself. The aimless pleasure multiplies immediately, growing urgent, and he succumbs to the urge to slide his finger the rest of the way in at once.

Cesare cannot restrain a gasp at the friction, the sudden awareness the movement brings. It feels strange on his finger, too, now that he notices it: hot and wet, but without the familiar slick softness of a woman’s cunt. He has had women this way before, but not recently. _Would Lucrezia?_ Yes, he thinks; he is coming to realize that she is just as much a hedonist as he, as their father. She would surely be curious, at least.

Cesare lets that fantasy take him for a moment, picturing the fall of her curls over her back, the soft curve of her waist under his hands, the way she would push back on him, the tightness of her; but when the thought makes his cock throb, it is his own muscles that clench tight in response around his finger, and he feels abruptly perverse for thinking of himself in the other position just now.

Cesare returns to his imagined Micheletto. Would Micheletto handle Cesare as Cesare does Lucrezia, with such care? He might, if Cesare wished it. Cesare knows Micheletto to be capable of tenderness, though he writes it more in spilled blood than with any conventional gesture.

Cesare would rather have the blood—but he is flushed hot and hard under his blankets, secluded in the dark, and just now he would rather not have tenderness at all.

Instead, Cesare gives his cock another few fast strokes, and then forces his second finger into himself. It is still slick with the oil, but not enough, and the stretch leaves him panting into his pillow. Oh, it hurts, but it is good, so good. Cesare knows this of himself already, that he enjoys the pain at times—a woman’s nails on his back, teeth on his throat and chest and thighs; his heart pounds even when Lucrezia plays at pricking him with pins while the tailors work.

Micheletto might be tender if Cesare wished it, but he can be sure Micheletto will be rough all of his own accord. It makes Cesare feel delirious. He does not know what to think, does not know what he dares, does not know what it might feel like just to be taken, still less to be taken—so. His experience does not extend even to put words to it, much less to conjure the fantasy. He settles on what he does know: Micheletto’s weight against his back, teeth sinking a red-purple bruise into the side of his neck, a rough palm—either of theirs—around his cock.

Again, Cesare imagines he feels Micheletto’s hardness pressing against him from behind, and fierce heat sweeps through him in answer. Suddenly desperate, he pushes his fingers in deeper and shudders at the burn of it: sharp, overwhelming, intertwined maddeningly with pleasure. _Is this what it will feel like?_ Just the thought drives him to the brink, so it takes only the slightest motion of his other hand to push him over. He spills into his palm with a grunt, and then gasps when his muscles pulse on and on in response, sending shocks through him.

His body settles, finally, and he can gingerly withdraw his fingers. The soreness lingers, but now he is exhausted. He gropes for a handkerchief, wipes his hand, already too tired to be disgusted with himself, and is asleep moments later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update February 7th.


	3. day & night ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy the early update, with my compliments. Or something.
> 
> This is, essentially, a 5,500-word ode to bottoming, because I’ve been in quarantine for a year. And that’s all we’re gonna say about that.

As ever, Cesare trains with Micheletto the next day, but only at sword and bow, so he need not confront the reality of grappling with Micheletto after dreaming as he did. Micheletto, too, seems cautious, not nearly as ready to drop his weapon, grab, and gouge as he usually is; so perhaps Micheletto knows that Cesare read the undertone of their conversation more clearly than he might have wished.

After, though, they return to Cesare’s chambers. In the corridor outside—deserted, though it is midday—Cesare is struck with the memory of Micheletto’s body on his, the fantasy and the reality. He misses it, wants it, wants to feel Micheletto overpower him and—and—

Without more than a moment’s thought, Cesare draws his dagger and lunges for Micheletto. They wrestle for but a few seconds before Micheletto bears him back against the wall.

“A fair ambush, my lord,” Micheletto says, his knife at Cesare’s neck. Cesare swallows against the blade. He releases his own knife, and Micheletto moves to let him go.

Instead, Cesare clutches Micheletto by the hip and jerks their bodies together, knowing that his eyes are rabbit-wide, that he has no idea what he is doing.

Micheletto does not resist the movement. The knife remains steady on Cesare’s throat as Micheletto looks down at the dagger on the floor, then back at his face. Cesare’s palm prickles with sweat, but he does not let go.

“You might have said,” Micheletto says finally.

“I knew not how,” Cesare says. It comes out hoarse. “I knew not, until—”

Micheletto interrupts Cesare, so uncharacteristically that Cesare falls silent. “What would you have from me, my lord?” There is a shadow to Micheletto’s voice, a shade deeper than his usual reserve, that Cesare mislikes.

Cesare shakes his head slowly, cautious of the blade. “I would not be your lord now.” He raises his hand to Micheletto’s chest, steadying himself against the even thrum of Micheletto’s heartbeat. His own pulse is a harsh stutter by comparison, snapping like a pennant in a gale. “Supposing you and I met in the night. As man to man. Would you have me?”

Micheletto sheathes his blade in one lightning-quick motion and returns his empty hand to Cesare’s throat, laying it along his jaw. Perhaps he means it tenderly, but Cesare’s heart only hammers harder against the touch.

“As man to _boy_ —” Anger licks hot up Cesare’s face, even as his legs go to water under him. “—yes, I would.”

With an effort, Cesare keeps his footing. Through dry lips and reluctant tongue, he manages to force out, “So do.”

Micheletto leans closer, warm breath against Cesare’s cheek, so for a moment he thinks they might kiss. “Then, as you knew not how to ask, the common phrase is _Fuck me_. Face the wall.”

Suddenly awkward, Cesare turns under Micheletto’s gaze, so he faces the stone like a child sent to the corner. Immediately, Micheletto presses himself along Cesare’s back, one arm tight around his chest. “Quiet.”

Of course: in the night, all manner of noises may, by common understanding, go unremarked—but it is midday, and they are in a sunlit hallway where anyone might come upon them. The thought makes Cesare want to curl into himself and disappear, evaporate like frost at sunrise.

But Cesare is swiftly distracted even further. He had anticipated—fantasized about—the swell of Micheletto’s cock against him, but the realization of it consumes him nonetheless. Now, feeling it, Cesare’s body seems to escape his control; it is another man shrinking and clinging to the wall, hiding his face against its surface, panting dry-mouthed with lust and panic even as his own cock stiffens.

One of Micheletto’s hands runs down Cesare’s side, around his hip, groping him roughly through the fabric. Cesare cannot help the hitch in his breathing, the way he pushes into the touch. He digs his fingers harder into the wall to hide the tremor that racks his arms.

Cesare’s breath catches again when Micheletto tugs the back of his hose down, just enough to expose him. Micheletto’s body would block his bare skin from view, even if there were anyone there to see, but blood still rushes hot to his cheeks, hotter still when Micheletto pulls back an inch to unlace himself.

Cesare ought to do something—say something—turn and look at Micheletto, at least, but—but that is not his role, is it? He is to be passive, as if he understands what that means. Even if he could peel his fingers off the wall, raise his head from where it rests, he would not know what to do. He catches his lip between his teeth, then promptly bites it hard when Micheletto’s weight returns to rest against his back. This time, Cesare can feel Micheletto’s bare skin against his own and—he tastes blood—Micheletto’s cock between his thighs.

Has Micheletto used oil, or is Cesare sweating so hard? He cannot say. One of Micheletto’s arms wraps around Cesare’s belly as the other pushes his shoulders forwards. “Put your legs together,” Micheletto says, very low.

Again, Cesare obeys, and then has to grind his teeth into his bleeding lip to cut off the noise that wants to escape him as Micheletto thrusts into the tight space between his legs. Cesare’s hand drops to clutch at Micheletto’s forearm around his waist. “Micheletto,” he hisses, though he does not know what he intends to say.

“Quiet,” Micheletto growls, pressing him harder into the wall, and Cesare’s body seems to comprehend better than his mind, rocking back when Micheletto pushes forwards. This was not how he expected to be taken; the rhythm is familiar enough to keep him hard, yet foreign enough to bring him no further, like tinder that smokes but refuses to take a spark.

After a minute, their breathing heavy in the silence, Micheletto turns his hand to grip Cesare’s wrist and tug it down to his crotch. “Go on.” Micheletto must feel how Cesare’s hand shakes, how he fumbles, because he slows enough to allow Cesare to unlace his hose one-handed, clumsy as a child.

Then Cesare can wrap a hand around himself, following Micheletto’s pace as it quickens, and it is strange how satisfying that feels now, the thickness and heat and the slippery shift of skin against his inner thighs. He recognizes the feeling, unexpectedly: the connection, being of one body, seeking the same pleasure; the same as he has felt time and again, fucking women.

The thought swells in Cesare’s chest; again, he feels perverse for daring to compare the two, but shame only fires his arousal hotter. It scales so rapidly that Cesare realizes he is about to embarrass himself only moments before he does—but Micheletto realizes it too, clamping his hand over Cesare’s mouth, and Cesare might be indignant if his fingernails were not tearing against the stone as he buckles and convulses in Micheletto’s grasp, spending himself with a violence that nearly hurts.

When Cesare’s mind clears, Micheletto is holding him up, still moving against him in short jerks. Cesare breathes hard through his nose, struggling to suck in enough air for his bellowing lungs. He has not stopped shaking, ripped open and raw, when Micheletto surges forwards to crush him into the wall, exhaling sharply against his neck. Cesare feels fresh wetness between his legs, and if Micheletto were not gagging him, he would surely make some abject and humiliating noise at the sensation.

Then Micheletto releases him and Cesare has to clutch the wall with both hands, his legs failing entirely to hold him up. He is lightheaded, still, with the force of his climax and the panic before it.

“I suppose I should not call upon God,” Cesare finally pants, lifting his head to see where Micheletto leans next to him.

“He might not appreciate it,” Micheletto agrees. He is less disheveled than Cesare feels, but even so, there is a bright flush up his throat and cheeks, all the way to where sweat sticks red curls to his hairline. He proffers a rag.

Cesare laughs, a little hysterically, at the both of them standing in the corridor with their hose open in the full light of day. He takes the rag and wipes at the mess running down his thighs, silently making his apologies to Lucrezia, to every woman, for every time the same discomfort has been his fault; then he has to stop and laugh at himself again. He feels himself a madman.

When Cesare is at least no longer—well, _dripping_ , and he is certain now that he is making the same face as Lucrezia about it—he hitches his hose back up and looks over to Micheletto, who now appears perfectly composed. Even his sweat has dried.

Cesare shakes his head. “I thought you might...”

“You did not ask.” Micheletto’s voice is neutral, but Cesare reads amusement in the corners of his lips, his eyes.

“You gave me no chance.”

Micheletto tips his head in acknowledgment. “I would not presume, my lord. It is not so easy to find pleasure in it.”

Cesare remembers the first slick stretch as he slid his finger into himself, and a warm ache starts in his groin, spent as he is. “I did not find it so hard,” he says. He regrets, for an instant, the uncontrolled raggedness in his voice, until he hears Micheletto’s next breath come a little deeper, perhaps as close to a gasp as he is capable of. Spurred by triumph, Cesare continues, “Will you next time?”

“Next time?” Micheletto asks. He has quickly reassembled his mask, but there is an avidness in his gaze that Cesare cannot mistake.

Cesare steps closer, leaving just a handsbreadth between them. “Next time,” he confirms. “Next time, I would have you come to me and—and take me as you please.” He is momentarily astonished at himself, that he is capable of saying such a thing to another man, but this is Micheletto, who has guarded and guided him already through worse sins, the worst of sins, who is now watching him with eyes that glitter like banked coals.

They gaze at each other for a small eternity, not touching but close enough for Cesare to feel Micheletto’s body heat, before Micheletto breaks eye contact. He ducks to retrieve Cesare’s dagger, forgotten on the floor. “You have blunted this again, my lord,” he says without reproach. “I will have it sharp for you this evening.”

* * *

Micheletto is as good as his word: Cesare returns to his chambers late and finds the dagger on the table by his bed, Micheletto already stretched out on his pallet. Seeing him, Cesare’s heart crawls immediately into his throat. Micheletto does not sleep soundly enough to have missed his entrance—which means he is feigning sleep—which means he plots something.

Hands trembling, Cesare strips down to his shirt, pretending ignorance in his turn. He settles on the edge of the bed and picks up the dagger to check the edge on his thumb. It draws blood immediately, of course. Cesare licks the droplet hurriedly away.

Micheletto has not moved, which means he will not act until Cesare lies down, perhaps even until he is asleep. Cesare feels a childish impulse to delay, but his heart is already racing, his breath growing tighter with every passing moment. He sets the dagger down, licks his lips, then pinches out the candle and crawls under his covers before he can hesitate any longer. He does not think he can sleep, not attuned as he is to Micheletto’s slow breathing across the room. But it is black and warm as the womb, and Micheletto is nothing if not patient. 

Indeed, Cesare must have drifted, because he realizes as if through fog that Micheletto is already in the bed with him. A wash of heat that is as much battle-fear as lust drives his mind clear in an instant.

“Easy, my lord,” Micheletto says, low, from behind him. A hand sweeps over the blankets, tracing the line of Cesare’s side, and Micheletto’s weight shifts closer to him.

Cesare wonders if Micheletto is dressed, if Cesare would feel bare skin on his if he moved back to meet him. He wonders if he could touch Micheletto this time, and the thought makes his mouth dry. It is strange, this notion of passivity; Cesare feels as though he is shirking—but surely Micheletto would say if something more were expected of him.

Micheletto’s hand wends under the blankets to retrace its path down Cesare’s body, and this time he cannot restrain a shudder, like a horse twitching away flies.

“You said as I wished.” Micheletto’s voice, always quiet, always hoarse, seems to drop lower with every word.

“Yes.”

“Do you know what you ask?”

In spite of the drumming of his heart, Cesare smirks. “You need not explain the mechanics.”

Micheletto does not answer. His hand rubs a slow circle on Cesare’s hip; then he seizes Cesare around the chest with both arms and drags them together, as viper-fast as he was the night they met.

Cesare gasps, forcing down the urge to fight. Like him, Micheletto is clad only in his shirt, and this time Cesare dares to reach back, finding Micheletto’s flank and pushing up the hem to feel skin underneath. It is only Micheletto’s thigh, hairy and hard with muscle, but warmth begins to spread over Cesare’s face, melt its way down through his gut.

Micheletto’s mouth finds the corner of Cesare’s jaw, dragging a path down his neck and onto his shoulder, nudging his shirt aside. The burn of Micheletto’s stubble is too sweet for Cesare to find it disorienting; it draws a noise of satisfaction from his lips, and he pushes back into it. Micheletto exhales against his skin, and then Cesare feels the edge of Micheletto’s teeth on the muscle, there at the join of his neck. His hand tightens involuntarily on Micheletto’s leg.

Micheletto takes Cesare’s every cue to perfection, as always. Now he bites down, sharp and sudden, and Cesare inhales hard, trembling all over. One of Micheletto’s hands, the one snaked under Cesare’s ribcage, finds his heart; the other comes down to wrap around the base of his cock. Cesare shakes, again, caught between trying to push forward into Micheletto’s touch or back into his teeth.

Neither of them is fully hard yet, but Micheletto surely cannot miss the way Cesare’s cock swells and his heart pounds as Micheletto bites harder. Cesare steels himself to trail his own hand lower, until his fingertips reach the soft shape of Micheletto’s cock, and finds himself blushing like a maiden when it thickens at his touch.

With a growl, Micheletto releases Cesare’s shoulder and shoves him over onto his front. Cesare grunts, mingled surprise and pain. Micheletto tugs the covers off to expose him as unceremoniously as before, and Cesare feels his body lift away, hears something scrape on the nightstand, feels a weight land on the bed. “On your back.”

It is easier in the dark, when they are only bodies and voices, not master and servant, not allies, not friends, not men. Cesare rolls over and pulls his shirt over his head, letting his legs fall open with a confident sprawl that he can almost believe he feels. There are nerves, still, sparking in his gut, but at a simmer rather than a scald, a pleasant warmth so long as he does not think too hard about it.

Micheletto’s weight returns to the bed, one of his legs landing across Cesare’s before he corrects, and the ungainly contact settles the flutter in Cesare’s belly a little. They are only bodies, after all, and this is only fucking, as corporeal a thing as there is.

The room is too black even for Cesare to see Micheletto’s shape, but he guesses Micheletto is kneeling between his legs. As if in confirmation, a hand lands on Cesare’s knee, then slips under his thigh to lift it. He gets the idea, pulling both legs up, and hears Micheletto grunt approval. It is strange to bare himself so unashamedly, yet feel more thoroughly concealed than by any clothing, the darkness muffling him like an arras.

Something blunt and cool presses up under Cesare’s balls for a moment, making him gasp before it begins edge down, leaving a trail of wetness that feels cooler still. He jerks, ready to complain, but Micheletto’s hand closes around his hip. “I would not move,” Micheletto murmurs.

Cesare has heard that tone of voice before, with its implicit threat as soft as a suffocating pillow, albeit rarely directed at him. He tries to force himself still, but then the cold touch presses into him; slick and slender as it is, it slides in quickly, and Cesare cannot stop his legs scrabbling at the bed, trying to push away.

“Do not move,” Micheletto repeats, sharper, even as he eases the thing deeper, making Cesare’s whole body go tight with suppressing the impulse to struggle.

“Micheletto, what—” Cesare’s voice comes out higher than he would like, bursting from him with a suddenness: he has been holding his breath. Micheletto makes no response except to pull the thing out by an inch—the relief and the motion combine to set stars fizzing in Cesare’s blinded vision—and then push it still deeper.

A thin, frustrated noise escapes Cesare’s throat. The cold feels furiously unnatural; it is entirely painless, yet Cesare cannot help thinking it is like being stabbed, this sensation of smooth, rigid metal resting inside him.

That thought stirs recognition in Cesare’s mind just as the thing seats itself all the way inside him and confirms it, the guard of his dagger coming to rest against his rim. So, he has not been stabbed: it is the handle, not the blade, that he feels. _Perhaps I ought to make a comparison_ , he thinks deliriously. Despite the blackness, his face is flushed hot, a shudder of humiliation racking him even as he tries to hold himself stiff.

Micheletto is silent. Cesare is sure Micheletto is listening for his every rapid breath; for his teeth grinding with the clench of his jaw; perhaps, indeed like a viper, for his heartbeat. Then, very slowly, Micheletto begins to pull the dagger out. Cesare exhales shakily, the feeling of such smoothness withdrawing through tight, tender flesh vivid with sensitivity. It sends a twitch to Cesare’s cock, not enough for him to harden again, only a reminder that—that if he trusts Micheletto, there will be pleasure to come from this. And there is no one he trusts more.

The lingering coolness of the metal soothes any hint of friction, any burn, so the dagger can slip out as easily as anything—then back in just as easily. Cesare chokes back a whimper; the metal is slowly warming, so the sensation is not so unnatural, the urge to yank away not so strong. Micheletto’s hand loosens on Cesare’s hip, rubbing another slow circle before making its way down the curve of his thigh.

Far gentler than he was in daylight, Micheletto sets into a rhythm, pulling slowly out, pushing even more slowly in. Cesare finds himself relaxing, muscle by reluctant muscle. As he does, his focus shifts to Micheletto, to the still, serpentine focus Micheletto pays him in turn. Cesare tries to conjure the image of that avid hunger with which Micheletto watched him earlier as he said: _take me as you please._ Cesare is sure, were it light, that he would see the same expression now—but he cannot; the vision twists and slips away from him, leaving him with Micheletto’s heavy breathing, the tension in Micheletto’s hand against his thigh.

This time, Cesare cannot feel it, so he must think, instead, of Micheletto’s arousal. It is thoroughly intoxicating to put words to it; Cesare realizes, in a flash, the odd, inverse power he wields now. He needs do nothing, but he holds Micheletto’s attention wholly captivated. The heat of it is palpable, aching. Cesare imagines Micheletto has removed his shirt, too, imagines the warm smoothness of skin and rough hair, imagines his cock and balls hanging heavy and throbbing between his legs.

The thought, combined with the steady slide of the dagger in and out of him, has Cesare starting to harden again himself. He shifts his hips a little and feels Micheletto’s hand tighten, perceiving the motion. Micheletto makes a quiet noise of satisfaction and pushes back, urging Cesare’s knees higher. Cesare moves willingly with him.

The dagger slips free of Cesare’s body, and Micheletto must have changed his grip as it pushes back in, at a sharper angle, Cesare thinks, but it is hard to think all of a sudden. The angle stretches him in an unfamiliar way, tipping on the edge of discomfort, and alights untouched nerves inside him as it moves. His hips twist involuntarily, unsure whether to push or pull back, unsure how far he can stretch without doing himself some harm.

Only half intentionally, Cesare reaches down to palm himself, thinking perhaps to ease the way as he did when he was alone, but the contact only makes his muscles clench, and as they do, some sensation too deep for words pulses up into his gut, winding him. His next inhale comes in a wheeze, and he wraps his fist in the blanket so hard it digs painfully into his fingers.

Cesare feels Micheletto’s attention lock on him again, so sharp as to be physical. He remains frozen as Micheletto guides the dagger back in on the same path, waiting, waiting, _waiting—_ and it strikes him again in the same way, dull and oversensitive at once, like a finger digging through bandages.

Now the perverse pain-seeking spirit in Cesare takes notice; it is not quite pain, not now, but close enough that he finds his cock fully hard, the head wet when he wraps his hand back around himself at the same time as Micheletto drives the dagger in again. That sets Cesare to groaning aloud, another thick bead of liquid dripping over his fingers. Micheletto’s breathing comes faster, his hand starting to dig into Cesare’s leg; Cesare wishes fervidly that he could see Micheletto’s face, see whatever ravenous look he is relying on darkness to hide.

Again, Micheletto sets into a rhythm; he thrusts the dagger home and Cesare’s hips jerk reflexively away at the first stab of sensation, then settle into the slow throb that comes as the pommel withdraws over the same viciously sensitive flesh. He wonders if it is the same for women; his body certainly responds alike, arching and relaxing into the mattress, beyond his control, as shock turns more and more to pleasure.

By the time Micheletto pulls the handle back out of him, Cesare is panting, the slow stroke of his hand on his cock making him leak continuously onto his belly, his fingers slick with it. His whole body feels melted, overheated; each minuscule movement of Micheletto’s hand on his hip sends prickling oversensitivity up his spine. The withdrawal of the dagger leaves him empty, muscles still tensing and easing on reflex with every twitch.

Micheletto’s weight moves away, and the dagger clunks onto the nightstand.

Cesare waits, breathless.

When Micheletto returns to the bed, his hands come to rest immediately on Cesare’s waist. The one is bare and sweat-damp where it touched him already; the other is gloved in leather, and Cesare shivers a little at the contrast. Micheletto handles Cesare as confidently as he did the blade, urging him again onto his side and settling at his back, in what Cesare is coming to think of as his custom. This time, Cesare feels no hesitation about curling back into his embrace, hot skin wrapped around every inch of him.

Micheletto’s hand slides down Cesare’s upper thigh and guides his knee up to fold against his belly; then, all at once, Micheletto is positioning himself, the head of his cock smearing oil where it pushes up against Cesare, and—

—it is so smooth, so easy, that it takes Cesare seconds to recognize the sudden press inside him. Then he has to scramble to shove a fist in his mouth, muffling something closer to a scream than a sigh. He forgets any notion of blasphemy: _God_ , but it feels good. He buries his face in the pillow and shudders, fingers clutching in the sheets.

Micheletto rolls his hips, just once. The feeling of his cock sliding out makes Cesare gasp hoarsely, but the thrust back in turns the noise to a sob, nearly bringing tears to his eyes. It is better, far better than his fingers or the dagger, heat and fullness making everything easier and more intense all at once.

“It is good?” Micheletto has paused, holding himself taut over Cesare with a restraint that impresses him even now. Every vibration of his voice, every shift of his muscles travels through Cesare’s body, as though he reaches under Cesare’s skin in every member and not just the one.

Cesare turns his face out of the cushion. He manages to form words, raw as he is. “Yes. Yes, it is good.”

Micheletto’s presence behind Cesare is warmth and solidity and sweat, and his voice carries an edge of humor as he says, “Will you ask now, my lord?”

Heat renders Cesare’s mind sluggish, but he realizes, after a moment, what Micheletto is getting at. Embarrassment and a spark of anger flush his face even hotter in response.

Before Cesare can form an answer, Micheletto gives a huff of breath—laughter, irritation—and starts fucking him anyways, and Cesare forgets all else.

The force of it pushes him onto his front, Micheletto’s hand still holding his thigh in an awkward stretch, yet Cesare feels nothing but the pleasure burning through him with every motion. He gasps harder than he ever has in his life—at sport, in battle—struggling for air where he stifles his moaning again into the pillow. It is as good as fucking a woman, the same exhilaration coiling through him, and yet so different; vulnerable, inescapable, invasive, and yet his body seems made for it, crying for more.

Cesare cannot unwrap his hands from the bedclothes, cannot move except to arch back into Micheletto, rubbing his cock against the sheets a helpless drag, but that is enough. Pleasure mounts in his stomach with every jerk, like the swell of waves on a rising tide: minute, steady, and inexorable. Micheletto’s breathing is heavy in his ears and the darkness blankets them as luxuriantly as velvet, suspending Cesare in an eternity; this could go on the night long, the full period of the tides, and he would not know the difference.

Countless, measureless time later, the pleasure reaches a crest, and Cesare’s panting comes still faster in anticipation of release—but it does not come, only rides the same edge for an eternity longer, as a wave defies the break. He groans his frustration, face damp with sweat or tears, fingers fisting tighter in the blanket—

—and _finally_ it takes him, like nothing he has ever felt before. All his muscles lock, tightening where Micheletto enters him, so that Cesare must bite back a cry at the sudden, near-painful friction. Above him, Micheletto curses, his tempo breaking into a slow grind that drives Cesare’s climax from him in an unrelenting, agonizing throb. He spills slick and hot and endless into the sheets under his belly, sobbing and writhing with every pulse.

The next Cesare knows, Micheletto is withdrawing from him, leaving a wetness that makes Cesare shift uncomfortably again as he regains his breath. He rolls back onto his side, away from his own wet spot, and straightens his legs with a wince. Micheletto stretches parallel behind him, perhaps a forearm’s-length away; overheated and sweat-drenched as they both are, Cesare is suddenly grateful for the distance.

They are both silent, for a long time. Cesare’s mind works, but not in any path that could be put to words, so it is Micheletto who breaks into the quiet.

“You took to it well, my lord.” There is an undercurrent of something to his voice. Surprise, Cesare thinks, but he cannot read it further.

“Does it say something of me?” Cesare means the question idly, but it comes out with a tightness that he did not expect.

He feels Micheletto’s shrug through the mattress. “I do not think so.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.” Micheletto is quiet for a moment. “A body can bear many things, easily or no. Yours bears this easily. No more.”

“Not every man would say so.”

“No. But any man who said otherwise would find himself at the wrong end of my blade.”

Cesare laughs softly. “You would defend my honor for me?”

“Only if I drew faster than you, my lord.”

“I wish you would not milord me now.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Cesare rolls over, bumping his shoulder, his hip, into Micheletto’s. “Micheletto, I believe that was a joke.” Even face to face, exchanging breath, he cannot see Micheletto’s smile, but he feels it. It reminds him of childhood, of whispering stories with Juan in their shared bed, the memories sweet and stinging as opium smoke. Cesare sighs. “If only you had been my brother.”

“You are a rare man to say so now,” Micheletto says, dry.

Cesare pauses, acknowledging the rebuke. A curiosity springs to his lips, but he finds himself at a loss to word the question. “Have you been—ever—”

Micheletto lets Cesare struggle with the words before silencing him with a murmur of acknowledgment. “I have.”

“But not recently,” Cesare guesses.

Micheletto’s chuckle is silent, just a movement of air over Cesare’s face. “I am too old for that.”

“Did not you not enjoy it?”

Another shrug through the mattress. “Much as I enjoyed women,” Micheletto answers. “Neither was convenient.”

The response practically demands Cesare’s next question. “My sister?”

“What of her?”

“You recall what I asked—what she asked.” A grin tugs at one side of Cesare’s mouth. “She wishes to be convenient to you, I think.”

It is a long time before Micheletto replies; when he does, it is very quiet. “Why?”

Cesare senses a tenderness in the word that he never expected, that makes something like pity wrap its fist around his throat. He speaks slowly, trying to lay out Lucrezia’s many, mercurial facets in a shape Micheletto can see. “She wants nothing more than love, to be loved. She loves her husband more than he will ever love her, because he cannot know enough of her. And I love her, all of her, but so I always have; it proves nothing.” The thought grieves him, but it is a wound he is accustomed to ignore. “But she sees how you care for her already. And she trusts you, because I trust you.” Cesare’s breath wavers a little; he thinks Micheletto’s does, too. “And—and she has been ill-used by so many men. She loves her husband because he does not have the will for it. But us, she loves us because we do, and still we do not do it, because she has tamed us.”

Micheletto is silent.

On impulse, Cesare reaches out, grips Micheletto by the shoulder. “I am not your lord now, Micheletto; I will not order you. Nothing is more important to me than her happiness, but—but she can be happy without this, if you mislike it.”

After a moment longer, Micheletto lays a hand on Cesare’s side, as though they are to dance, and they hold each other in a strange, arm’s-length embrace, breathing together.

With a smirk, Cesare continues, “Though I confess I cannot imagine why you would.”

“I suppose you cannot,” Micheletto says, somehow conveying volumes of suggestion without any change in tone. “Tell me, what does she expect of me?”

Cesare’s smile stretches wider. “You know Lucrezia: she knows her mind. She will make her desires clear, that I promise you.” He pauses, but Micheletto makes no reply. Still, his hand rests easy on Cesare’s ribs, and he does not object when Cesare pulls him a little closer. “So would you?”

“Yes,” Micheletto says, so simply that Cesare is almost taken aback. “Yes, I would.” There is a little roughness to his voice as he repeats himself.

Cesare squeezes Micheletto’s shoulder, unable to help some expression of affection. “Good. Good.”

After a moment, Micheletto’s hand squeezes his side in reply, a trifle awkwardly.

“I will—I will ask her how she wills it, and when,” Cesare continues.

Micheletto hums agreement and grips Cesare tighter again, just for a second. “It is late, my lord. Go and rest with her now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update February 14th.
> 
> I tried very hard to accurately represent the historical expectations of a male-male sexual relationship in Renaissance Italy here, largely relying on Michael Rocke’s _Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence_. It may feel strange to a modern reader, and that’s intentional: men at the time understood male-male sexuality, sexual relationships, and sex itself very differently from us. Rocke’s work is phenomenal, and I recommend it to anyone who reads or writes erotica in this period.


	4. dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought the story would wrap up in four chapters, but ultimately decided this interlude merited its own. Sorry, no threesome yet. Have some incest.

Cesare wakes in Lucrezia’s bed, glazed and warm with the earliest of sunlight; the sheets, the curtains, her hair, the very air all veiled in the hazy gold of honey. He stirs, wincing as unfamiliar pains make themselves known.

Lucrezia is watching him across the pillow. “You are hurt.”

Cesare thanks God that he slept with his shirt fastened; lingering soreness at his shoulder tells him the mark of Micheletto’s teeth would still be lividly visible else. Still, he need not lie: “Micheletto and I trained yesterday. He bests me still.”

“Does he?” Lucrezia raises her eyebrows, trailing one finger down Cesare’s chest, her voice low and sweet with mirth. “Then I really must have him, brother, if that is so.”

She surprises a laugh from Cesare’s chest. He rolls her over, bundling the sheets away. It is dawn, and it is beautiful, and Lucrezia is beautiful with her hair spilling golden rivulets over the cushions, beautiful with the collar of her shift pulled askew, with its skirt rucked around her thighs. “On the battlefield, it may be,” Cesare says into her neck. He breathes in her scent, sweet linen and the dry spice of perfume.

“Will you prove me otherwise, then?”

“Every day, if you let me,” Cesare vows. Lucrezia’s laughter turns to a sigh as he kisses her throat, following the neckline of her shift, then moving along the braided ornamentation down its front. He pauses to palm the soft rise of one of her breasts as he traces the shape of the other with his mouth, breath dampening the linen. His stubble catches on the fabric and makes her giggle again.

Lucrezia’s hands roam over Cesare’s shoulders and down his forearms as he smooths the hem of her shift up over her hips, her waist, tracing the curve of her body with the edge of his fingernails, feather-light, after. She sighs again when he resumes his path down over her belly, his lips finding her navel, the slack skin below with its fading streaks like brushstrokes on a portrait. When he reaches her mound, breath stirring the soft patch of hair there, she twitches and gives another breathless little laugh; then he licks one smooth swipe up her sex, stopping to suck gently at the apex of her, and she groans loudly. It is near the most unladylike sound he has ever heard from her, and he presses his face into her thigh to stifle a chuckle.

“Do not _stop_ ,” Lucrezia demands, kicking him in the ribs.

Cesare laughs at her again, unrepentant, and bows his head back over the fragile flesh of her thigh, ivory only a shade darker than her nightgown. The slightest touch of his teeth, the scratch of his stubble, is enough to bring a pink flush to her skin. He ignores the way she angles her hips, trying to bring him closer; instead, he lets her feel just his breath as he switches sides, and watches her spasm at the whisper of air.

Only when she hisses, “ _Brother_ ,” and kicks him again does he redirect his attention. Teasing, still, he begins to press his lips to the outside of her folds—gentle, closed-mouth kisses. Her murmur in response is sweet; the way she moves, pushing up against his mouth, seeking more of every touch, is sweeter. Cesare settles into the mattress and turns to kiss her thigh again, then rests his head there to admire the slender form of her body from this angle, the rise and fall of her breast as she breathes.

Restless, Lucrezia props her other leg up, knee bent, and Cesare watches with affection as she scrunches her toes into the sheets. He strokes the curve of her leg from ankle up to the join of her thigh before he dips his fingers between her folds, finding her hot and sticky-wet already.

“Oh, sis,” Cesare breathes. He brings his hand to his lips, and Lucrezia lifts her head to watch him with eyes the fathomless blue of twilight. Cesare slows, teasing himself as much as her when he runs his tongue up the length of his fingers, the thick, salt taste of her kindling warmth in the pit of his belly.

“Brother,” Lucrezia says, and then, “ _Cesare_ ,” when he leans in to set his open mouth on her, lingering for one more moment as she tenses in anticipation; and then, when he finally presses his tongue into her, mapping the soft folds and swells of flesh, she exhales harshly and sinks her nails into his shoulder, pillows rustling with the arch of her neck.

Cesare introduced Lucrezia to this—not the first time they made love, but later that night, when that hallucinatory ecstasy had worn off and they were both frantic with the guilt they did not feel. The only absolution Cesare sought was hers, was to make her writhe and cry his name, reassuring himself that she knew him, came to him, desired him still. He is a jealous man, besides: there is a fierce satisfaction in the knowledge that in this, he is better than any of her former lovers, better than her Narcissus; and in the knowledge that, for the rest of her life, any other man who gives her this will be imitating him in her eyes.

Lucrezia is trembling and arching into Cesare’s touch already: his thoughts have made him rougher, quicker with her than he meant to be. He forces himself to slow, pulling back and licking her taste from his lips. She murmurs a half-hearted complaint as she sinks back to the mattress, but only for as long as it takes him to wet a finger in his mouth and ease it into her, letting her feel it for a long moment before he angles his head to put his mouth to her again. She sighs, half a moan, as he circles his tongue steadily over her sex, tensing and releasing around his finger as through to draw it deeper.

When Cesare curls his finger to stroke inside her, Lucrezia’s hips jerk sharply up against his mouth, and the movement sparks such recognition that it dizzies him, vision and sensation suddenly doubled. The memory of spiking, near-painful pleasure as his own dagger drove into him makes him flush hot, sinking the fingers of his free hand into the sheets—and so he remembers clutching the sheets and moaning like a whore under Micheletto’s body, remembers the molten flood of his climax overtaking him. He shudders, head spinning with the taste of Lucrezia and the lingering smell of Micheletto’s sweat and the deep ache as he starts to harden in spite of the past day’s exhaustion.

Again, Cesare pulls back, calms himself. He draws his finger out of Lucrezia to the tip, her muscles clutching as he moves, and then slides it back in on an angle, rocking his hand in a slow caress against the delicate folds of her walls. She squirms.

“Beautiful,” Cesare murmurs as he slips his finger back out, as Lucrezia gasps, hips lifting to follow him. The muscles of her thighs flex when he gives her what she wants, pressing back inside her with two fingers, finding a slick, easy thrust in and out. “Beautiful, sis.” This view of her never ceases to entrance him. She is pale and perfect as a statue in marble, and yet so filled with life: the drumbeat of her pulse; the flutter of her breath; the sheen of sweat on her skin; the rose blush of blood beneath.

Lucrezia grips Cesare’s shoulder as she opens on his fingers, her head still thrown back among the pillows so he cannot see her face. He leans back in to lick at her again—slowly, lightly, not nearly enough to bring her to completion. He knows it, and she knows that; she gives a little _oh_ that sounds almost offended as she bucks up into his mouth, seeking more. Laughing, he pulls back yet again, rising on hand and knees to edge up along her body without dislodging his fingers.

Cesare stretches out over Lucrezia, propping himself on his elbow so he can weave his hand into her hair as he kisses her, and hold her against the cushions as she gasps against his lips. She wraps her legs around his waist, her arms around his shoulders, drawing him close while he continues the steady motion of his fingers inside her. When he finally pulls back to see her, her lips are red and wet, her cheeks flushed almost as bright. She opens her eyes, deep as the waters above or below, and Cesare feels himself transfixed as always in her gaze; powerless to deny her, as though she is some hypnotic spirit made incarnate.

“Brother, please,” she whispers now, and Cesare nods.

He works his hand out of her, where they are still pressed together with her legs around him, until he can take his cock in hand with a firm stroke. It takes longer to bring himself to hardness than usual; he fears she will notice, but she only watches his face hungrily all the while—and with her breasts rising and falling against his chest, the humid heat of her sex against the back of his hand, longer than usual is not very long at all. Then, at last, he can ease his fingers back between her folds, spreading her open and settling himself at her entrance.

Lucrezia is so wet that Cesare enters her easily, barely needing to shift his hips to sink deep into her. She closes her eyes, her lips parting. Ordinarily, this is enough to make him shudder and pant with her, but exhaustion makes it easy to put his own pleasure out of his mind. He can drink in hers instead, knowing the satin-slick slide of skin as well inside as out.

Cesare moves as slowly as he dares, and now it is he who watches Lucrezia with desperate hunger. There is unguarded rapture on her face, her lips trembling; every time he sinks fully into her, she draws a deep, slow breath; and every time he pulls back, she moans softly, unconsciously. He finds himself seeing and feeling double again, imagining the throb of penetration, the tantalizing drag of withdrawal, cycling endlessly as the waves. It is his pleasure, too, written on her face.

Cesare can feel Lucrezia’s climax begin to mount in the way her hips rise to follow his every thrust, in the pulse and release of her muscles around his cock. She opens her eyes again, licking her lips, breathing harder, rocking deliberately up to meet him; and soon enough, one of her hands makes its way down between them, bumping against Cesare’s stomach.

Gently, Cesare catches her by the wrist and brings her hand up to his lips, kissing each knuckle. “Are you in such a hurry?” he asks softly, even as he drives deep inside her once again.

Lucrezia squirms under him and gives a whine of frustration that might equally be real or mockery—it is difficult, even for him, to be certain with her. “What has gotten into you, brother?”

Cesare has to choke down a mad giggle at that. What has gotten into him is evidenced by unfamiliar rawness between his legs, by the trace of oil he can still feel there with every movement. For an instant, he thinks of telling her here and now, wondering how badly he might shock her.

But of course he cannot.

Instead, he moves her hand back into the cushions beside her head, lacing his fingers with hers, and leans down to kiss her. “Only your beauty, sis,” he says against her lips between kisses, “Your sweetness, your pleasure, your delight.” This time he pulls all the way free of her, ignoring her indignant huff, and guides her over onto her side, untangling himself from her legs to embrace her and slip back into her from behind. “Let me,” he breathes, as she gasps and quivers in his arms. “Let me, sis.”

Lucrezia whimpers when Cesare rocks into her from this angle; she is so slick and so hot, tighter around him this way. Now that he has spoken, he finds he cannot stop himself. “Do you like it so?” he murmurs, bracing a hand on her belly as he succumbs to the temptation to fuck her a little faster.

“Oh, yes,” Lucrezia sighs, and cants her hips back against him, tightening still more around his cock.

Heat is beginning to take root in Cesare’s belly, enough to distract him. He buries his face in Lucrezia’s neck with a low groan, sliding his hand up to find the soft slope of her breasts. When he snaps his hips into her more sharply, the lightning-flash of pleasure punches the breath from him on a grunt, in unison with Lucrezia’s breathy cry. “Oh,” he gasps as he does it again, again. “Oh, sis. Oh, sis.”

Lucrezia’s whimpers escalate into a high, broken moan at that. She wraps her leg back over Cesare’s to push herself into his every thrust; her hand flutters from the pillows to his wrist to his hip, clutching, clawing. “Brother, please,” she gasps, “Oh, please—”

Cesare finds himself groaning again: short, hungry noises as he drives into Lucrezia ever faster, losing his breath every few moments. He cups her breast in his palm, pinching her nipple lightly through her shift; she gives a loud, shocked cry, and then grabs for a pillow to hold to her face. Cesare can hear her breath heaving fast and raw through it. “ _Sis_ ,” he pants, babbling, “Let me, sis, come, let me—” He gropes her less gently, rolls her nipple between his fingers, thrusting into her again with all his force.

Lucrezia sobs, and then smothers the cushion tight over her mouth, her legs clamping together. The sudden throb of her muscles around Cesare’s cock and the spill of warmth over his thighs undo the last thread of his restraint; he clasps her tighter as he spends inside her, barely muffling his cry into her shoulder.

Lucrezia’s racing pulse gradually slows under Cesare’s palm, in time with the thunder of his own heartbeat in his ears. At length, Lucrezia pulls her pillow away from her face and cuddles back into his chest with a satisfied moan. He strokes her hair back from her face and kisses her temple, sighing. “Beautiful,” he whispers. “The most beautiful woman in all Rome.”

Lucrezia hums. “Tell me so again,” she says, and smiles with a sweetness that fills Cesare’s chest with sunlight.

“Beautiful,” Cesare says as he as bid, kissing her again. “More than any treasure. You are the jewel of the Vatican’s crown.”

“Not the Vatican’s.” Lucrezia shakes her head sleepily, and Cesare smiles at her disgruntlement. “Only yours, brother.”

“Only mine, then,” Cesare affirms. He runs his hand down over her chest, over the sweat-damp front of her nightgown, to slip between her thighs; he finds slickness all down her legs, enough to soak into the sheets beneath her. “You are a mess, sis,” he says into her ear.

“Yours,” she murmurs, eyes half-lidded.

Cesare laughs. “You are. This, I think not.” He brings his fingers to his lips, licks them clean.

Lucrezia turns her head to watch, shivering in Cesare’s arms, then takes his hand and pulls it back down between her legs. He laughs again in surprise. “Beautiful and insatiable,” he tells her, circling her sex gently with his fingertips as she hisses out a breath. “Like the panther.”

“You are too good to me.”

“I am,” Cesare agrees, easing three fingers into her and earning a guttural moan in reply. “I should not linger so in the morning.” He presses closer to her, lips just against her ear, and breathes, “Micheletto consents, by the way.”

Lucrezia inhales sharply, her hand tightening on Cesare’s wrist. “Does he?”

Cesare smiles against Lucrezia’s skin, feeling her inner muscles tense around his fingers. He rocks his hand against her, and she pushes her hips into it, her breath coming strangled already. His own voice is hoarse when he asks, “When would you have him come to you? Tonight?”

Lucrezia gives a little sob, grabbing at his hand to grind herself against it. Cesare obliges her, edging his last finger into her heat, loose and open around him. He rubs the heel of his palm harder against her and continues, barely moving his lips, “Should I watch him take you?”

“Oh,” Lucrezia whimpers, bucking against him. “ _Yes_.” She goes taut and still, gasping for breath, and Cesare feels the throb of her heartbeat for a moment before she releases again with a deep sigh, almost pained. She pulses around his fingers, setting wetness dripping down the back of his hand and making him wish he were not too spent to rise to her again.

But the haze of dawn is filtering into the true gold of sunlight, and in truth, Cesare should not linger; Lucrezia’s maids will arrive before long. He pulls away from her reluctantly, relishing for a just a moment the way she trembles as he withdraws, and sits up to clean and dress himself.

* * *

Micheletto eyes Cesare over their breakfast. “You are still a man, then,” he says, with the utter lack of expression that means it is a joke—yet, somehow, Cesare feels he is let in on it, not the butt of it.

Cesare cannot say he knows how to play the _bardassa_ , but he shoots Micheletto a sly grin nonetheless. “I have proven so,” he says, “And so shall you tonight.”

It is thoroughly satisfying to see Micheletto almost-drop his knife again at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next and final update February ~~21st~~ 23rd.
> 
> Update February 21st: Simultaneous emergency phone and kitchen repairs have derailed my final editing session tonight. Sorry for the delay—it’ll be worth it, I hope. I’m giving myself until Tuesday, but there’s a pretty good chance the final update will go up tomorrow.


	5. dusk

Cesare arrives first to Lucrezia’s chambers. The curtains are drawn, but the room is aglow with candles, so many that their light seems to set the whole space to shifting, as though under a golden flood.

Lucrezia is seated on the foot of her bed, staring down at her hand where it scratches idle designs over the covers. Her hair falls unbound and unpinned over her shoulders, pale strands clinging to the scarlet velvet of her dress. She stands when Cesare crosses to her, and leans into him, pressing her cheek against his chest. He holds her for a moment with one hand at the nape of her neck, the other smoothing down her side, before he pulls her back. “You are well?”

“Better that you are here. I thought—” Lucrezia shakes her head. “I do not know what.”

“I will always be here, sis,” Cesare says softly.

“You will,” Lucrezia agrees. She brushes imagined dust from Cesare’s front and looks up at him. The sight of her makes Cesare’s breath catch. She looks a girl, still, with her hair loose and her eyes wide and sparkling; yet the blood-red of her dress is all woman, all Borgia, and Heaven knows the light in her eyes is nothing innocent. Her tongue darts out over her lips—Cesare wonders if she has tinted them. “Would you help me undress, brother?”

Cesare cannot help his hand tightening on her shoulder. “Do you mean to greet Micheletto as you did me?”

Lucrezia laughs, low and merry, though Cesare did not miss her indrawn breath at Micheletto’s name. “I thought perhaps a nightgown. I fear my dress might confound him.”

Cesare hums agreement as he fingers the edge of Lucrezia’s neckline, layered with the stiff satin and velvet overdress and the soft, gathered linen of her shift. Then he sets to work on her sleeves, unfastening the ribbons at her shoulders and sliding the fabric off her arms. Something compels him to seek every possible contact with her, stroking both palms over each upper arm to pull the sleeve free, caressing the insides of her elbows, encircling her small wrists with his fingers. 

Lucrezia sighs and closes her eyes, doll-like, as Cesare pushes her robe back off her shoulders so it hangs at her elbows, pinning them loosely behind her. He cups her face, kisses her, feeling too clumsy, ungainly, even to be near her; it seems a marvel to be permitted to touch her.

It takes Cesare a long look to identify the construction of Lucrezia’s overdress; then he takes her again by the shoulder and turns her around, pulling the robe away and laying it over a chair as he does. The clasps down her back are tiny and tightly fastened, and Lucrezia goes swiftly from slack relaxation to giggling under his touch as he fumbles with them. “Surely these were designed for a maid,” he mutters, and she laughs harder.

At last, the clasps come free, and Cesare can loosen the laces beneath; Lucrezia’s ribcage expands under his hands as she inhales deeply, breathes out a huge sigh. She extricates her arms and steps free of the thick, rustling satin of the skirt.

“This would confound Micheletto indeed,” Cesare tells her as he takes the heavy overdress and sees another of similar make beneath it. This one is laced at the front, and he traces its neckline with his thumbs, settling his palms over the swell of Lucrezia’s breasts before he begins to loosen the cord. Two layers removed, he can feel her warmth, so he lets his hands wander, teasing out the shape of her body through the fabric. “I think he might rather take a knife to it.”

Lucrezia gives a startled burst of laughter. "He would not.”

“He would not,” Cesare admits, “but he might think of it. As I do.” He grins down at Lucrezia and tips her chin up to kiss her. She is eager, this time, nipping at his lower lip as he finishes unlacing her dress and slides a hand under the bodice. Only a layer of linen separates them, and she trembles as she leans into his touch.

Finally, with the second overdress set aside, Lucrezia stands before Cesare in only her shift again. He lifts it quickly over her head, all patience gone. When he pulls her to him, the bare length of her body pressed against his, she feels hot even through his own clothing, and he cannot resist kissing her, long and deep, relishing the weight of her resting in his arms.

Eventually, Lucrezia pulls back, a scant distance. “My nightgown, brother,” she says, so close that Cesare still feels the wetness of her lips moving against his, the flutter of her breath against his skin.

Reluctantly, he turns where she gestures to pick up the delicate robe, sheer lace some nameless shade between ivory and rose. He settles it over her shoulders, framing her breasts, the soft plane of her belly, the triangle of her thighs. By candlelight, she shimmers, lovelier than any gilded painting, any work of illumination. Cesare guides her back onto the bed.

“I did not invite you—” Lucrezia’s breath hitches as Cesare trails his hands down her sides to her hips, as he spreads her legs with a gentle grip, “—to have me first.”

“Stop me, then,” Cesare says hoarsely, tightening his hold as he steps closer. Lucrezia’s hands drift to rest on his chest, exerting no pressure; her eyes are luminous, her tongue pink between parted lips. He moves his hands back to her breasts, and her head tips back: her hair falling away to reveal the long white line of her throat, her robe slipping precariously on her shoulders—

Cesare knows that soft breath, that silent footstep, in the darkest night; he needs not look to feel Micheletto’s gaze like fire licking up his spine. Gooseflesh raises the hair on his forearms; he has been Micheletto’s prey, in every way, but never has he felt it so keenly. It makes him want to take a draw his knife and take a fighting stance; makes him want to bare his throat and hand Micheletto the blade; makes him want to clutch Lucrezia to him, bruising tight. 

But he will not. Before he can hesitate too long, Cesare lets Lucrezia go, stepping hurriedly back and away. She gasps, eyes widening, when she sees Micheletto, but she makes no move to cover herself.

“My lady,” Micheletto says.

Now Cesare looks back, but of course Micheletto is as he ever is, drab of dress, shoulders an unassuming hunch, face unreadable. The reflection of winking flames in his eyes renders even the direction of his gaze inscrutable.

“Micheletto,” Lucrezia says. Cesare sees her swallow. Without meaning to, he takes another step back, and she looks to him. “Brother.”

Micheletto remains still and silent, just inside the door, so Cesare forces his lips to work. “Tell us how you would have us, sis.”

Lucrezia’s confidence seems to wax as Cesare’s wanes. “There is a seat for you, brother.” The nightgown shifts fully off her one shoulder as she gestures, candlelight highlighting the hollow of her collarbone; as she turns back to Micheletto, she lifts her other arm, and the other sleeve falls away. “Let me see you, Micheletto.”

Cesare sinks into the armchair, angled a few paces back from the foot of the bed. Micheletto approaches Lucrezia, and she stands to meet him, the robe dropping to the floor, her hands coming up to settle against his chest, then trace down the lacing of his doublet. She does not speak, but tilts her face up to watch his as she begins to pick the laces apart.

After a long, long moment, deliberate as one approaches a cat with her kittens, Micheletto raises a hand to Lucrezia’s cheek, two fingers tracing the pink blush that edges her cheekbone. She smiles with sudden sweetness and covers his hand with hers. “Coarse hands,” she murmurs.

“I am sorry, my lady,” Micheletto says, slow and rough.

“Do not be,” Lucrezia answers. She turns into Micheletto’s touch, kissing his fingers. “Only be gentle with them.” Her eyes fix on Micheletto’s as she takes his fingertip between her lips; Cesare holds his breath, heat in his belly at the tiny movement, the wet sound of her tongue on Micheletto’s skin. Then she releases him, her eyelids flickering shut, and Micheletto’s hand curves around the back of her head as he leans down to press his lips to hers, delicately, chastely.

Lucrezia is still smiling as Micheletto pulls back. “Less gentle than that, perhaps,” she says, and draws him back in; finally, Cesare breathes out, trying and failing to silence his shaky exhale as Micheletto takes firmer hold of her, hands threaded carefully through her hair to cradle her head, as he kisses her with slow intent.

Cesare did not think to ask indeed how long it is since Micheletto has taken a woman to bed, but he evinces no want of confidence now—as if Cesare expected otherwise, as if he ever would. He feels a strange sort of pride in Micheletto, as he always does, that such an evident master should bend so easily to his will; as one would wield the finest of weapons, knowing it as dangerous to fear it too much as too little. It is well to be confident in one’s possessions, and to understand them.

Before Cesare, Lucrezia has finished unlacing Micheletto’s doublet and pushed it off his shoulders; the rustle of fabric, the slide of their mouths together, and the quiet rush of Cesare’s breathing are the only noises in the room, echoing in slow rhythm. Micheletto steps back to undress, unveiling Lucrezia’s body again to Cesare’s eyes, and she is a wonder all over, every time: the flush of her face reaching down to warm her throat, her breasts; her nipples dark pink and tight; a dew of sweat in the creases of her hips. She watches Micheletto’s disrobing with the same happy rapture as often she has Cesare—as if now Cesare is not present.

The thought cools Cesare’s ardor for hardly the time it takes him to think it, because his gaze follows Lucrezia’s, and he sees: Micheletto is beautiful, too.

Cesare’s pulse redoubles in his ears. It is folly. They are men. It is nothing to see each other undressed. Cesare knows Micheletto’s every limb and scar and curl of hair nigh as well as he knows his own. Yet now he has felt those details against his own bare skin, in passion both imagined and real; so now the images too are captivating, the cord of Micheletto’s thighs, the hard angle of muscle in his buttocks, the rippling ladder of his back under Cesare’s own lash-scars.

Cesare finds his mouth wet, tongue worrying at the scab on his lip, finds himself wishing that Micheletto would turn to him. The one sight of Micheletto that Cesare does not know is—and his face _scalds_ , suddenly, thinking of it—is Micheletto’s erectness, and the fervency of his desire to see now is such that it shocks him. He presses his thighs together, aching.

“Will you lay down?” Micheletto asks Lucrezia softly, and she sits; but she takes him by the wrist and pulls him with her as she reclines.

Micheletto does turn, then, to stretch out alongside Lucrezia, and the nonchalance of the movement, the way his focus does not shift in the slightest from her, speaks loud: of course he minds Cesare’s presence, his reactions; of course he follows Cesare’s thoughts perfectly.

The tableau affords Cesare a full view up both their bodies, Lucrezia on her back, Micheletto over her on his side. Cesare takes his lip between his teeth, taunting himself with the slow upward track of his gaze: the soft, pale arch of Lucrezia’s feet; the sharp line of Micheletto’s shin; the loose angle of Lucrezia’s knees where her legs spread; the red-gold hair that limns the front of Micheletto’s thigh; the truer gold hair that shades Lucrezia’s sex, her legs parted just enough to reveal a trace of pink flesh, slick with moisture. 

Cesare is already hard himself by the time he looks to Micheletto, and so desperate that he has to bite back a raw noise of appreciation at the sight. Micheletto’s cock is as thick as he imagined it, full and dark with blood where it rests against his thigh, the curls around it darker and redder than the hair of his legs. It stands heavier, not as stiffly as Cesare’s, and Cesare wonders for a moment at that; it is not unusual to see another man bare, but far rarer, more curious, to make this comparison.

Micheletto is bowing his head, his mouth over Lucrezia’s breast, and they have been near silent up to now, but Lucrezia squirms and gives a high _ah, ah_ to whatever he is doing with tongue and teeth, with his fingers grazing light circles over her other nipple. The memory of Micheletto’s mouth on Cesare’s throat, the scrape of his stubble, strikes Cesare vividly, as vividly as the silk-smoothness of Lucrezia’s skin, the little contraction of her nipple under his touch.

Lucrezia’s legs fall farther apart as she writhes, exposing her totally to Cesare’s sight, and he stifles another sound deep in his chest. He remembers feeling Lucrezia just the same under him, the way the muscles of her thighs slacken around his hips when she is ready for him, welcoming him closer into her. He remembers his own body opening so, reflexively, begging for something he did not know he could want.

Cesare wants to tell Micheletto to give Lucrezia what she is so very, so clearly ready for: to fuck her, already, so Cesare may immolate himself with watching.

He wants Micheletto to fuck him again.

He wants to touch them, both of them.

His fist rubs convulsively up and down his leg, the heel of his palm burning with friction. Lucrezia craves another man’s touch, and it makes Cesare hot and cold all at once to think so—but the man is _Micheletto_ , and at that, Cesare can feel nothing but heat.

Micheletto has not moved, in spite of Lucrezia’s restlessness, in spite of the constant spill of gasps and sighs from her lips. Cesare can see the edge of his face from this angle, neutral of expression as usual, but with an unguarded relaxation that Cesare has never witnessed. As they spoke soft across a pillow in the dark, perhaps, Micheletto’s tongue loose and laughing, he might have looked the same.

Finally, finally, Micheletto’s hand slips down over Lucrezia’s belly, trailing down the center of her sex and coming away glistening. Lucrezia’s legs twitch, her hips arch, and she says something, but Cesare’s heartbeat is too loud for him to hear it, nor Micheletto’s answer, if indeed he makes one. But Cesare can guess at the impatience of whatever she has asked, because Micheletto goes no further with his hand, but shifts readily to lie over Lucrezia.

Frustration tightens Cesare’s fists: must he get his wish, then, without view of the act itself? Yet he knows Lucrezia already in these moments, her lovely face, the heave of her chest, the hinge of her hips; it is a little novel, a little fascinating, to see it instead in her hands, her legs, her feet: like a play of shadows. Her knees draw up as Micheletto settles between them, and her palms roam over the muscle of his back—does she know Cesare gave him those scars?

Cesare can see Micheletto reach down between his own legs, but not how he touches himself; can see him shift on his knees, positioning himself, but not how his cock lays against Lucrezia’s sex. It is maddening. Time is passing in slow motion. Every new movement sends a throb to Cesare’s groin, but it is only some little adjustment, each time: Lucrezia curls her toes into the mattress to push her hips up; Micheletto cants his weight an inch farther forwards. Again, Cesare wants to plead with them. His heart is pounding like thunder, and the rub of his hose between his legs, damp with sweat, sends a constant stream of sparks crackling up into his belly.

All at once, the muscles of Micheletto’s legs and back contract, and Lucrezia cries out high and sweet, and Cesare thinks for a vertiginous second that he will spend himself just there like a boy. Surely his groan was loud enough that they heard him, but they give no sign of it.

Micheletto sets immediately into a quick, steady pace, urged on by Lucrezia’s hands wrapping his shoulders, tugging at his hips, by her feet slung loose around the backs of his thighs. If Cesare was captivated by the sight of Micheletto’s body, the play of muscle and skin, before—then that is nothing to now. _Oh, God_ , he finds himself thinking, _God_ , for now he can see clearly that which he could only bring himself to imagine as sensation before: himself, spread willingly under Micheletto—the casual flex of Micheletto’s arms handling him into position—the roll of Micheletto’s hips driving deep into him.

Cesare wonders how it would feel to be taken this way—with his legs around Micheletto’s waist, his cock pressed against Micheletto’s belly, his face to Micheletto’s—how it would feel to look into Micheletto’s eyes during that first shock of penetration. Micheletto could see him more naked than ever, could drink in his every breath, every shiver of pleasure, just as Cesare does Lucrezia’s. He gasps for air at the thought.

“Oh, Micheletto,” Lucrezia moans, and the sound of it cracks Cesare’s chest as ice cracks in hot water. He still wants her; he cannot stop wanting her; at his heart, he is made of nothing so much as how he wants her.

Yet she wants another.

Yet so does he.

Perhaps Lucrezia remains as insatiable by dusk as she was at dawn, or perhaps Cesare has been overtaken by the maelstrom of his thoughts longer than he knew; already, her legs are flexing tight around Micheletto, her toes curling into the air, her one hand clutching the sheets, her other down between their bodies. Fascinating, again, to see her so from this angle, to see the tremor that starts in her legs, tensing, building, finally breaking into the shuddering squeeze and release of her thighs as she moans again, long and loud. Micheletto holds still over her, a feat of control when Cesare knows full well how her inner muscles must be pulsing the same delicious, agonizing cadence around Micheletto’s cock.

It goes on and on until Lucrezia subsides to the bed, little jerks shaking her legs as they relax; but Cesare burns, still, to see Micheletto at his climax—so it surprises Cesare in earnest when Micheletto carefully withdraws from her.

Evidently, it surprises Lucrezia, too. Cesare’s fever abates enough to hear her words. “You are not satisfied?”

“I would not say that, my lady.” Micheletto resettles himself alongside her.

“But this—” Lucrezia wraps a delicate hand around Micheletto’s cock, “—says it for you.” And she is twice married, once a mother, doubtless with more lovers than Cesare is aware, but still it makes the ice in his ribcage congeal again, to see her handle another man’s body with such casualness.

Micheletto makes no move as Lucrezia strokes him slowly up and down, but the finest mist of sweat breaks over his chest, gleaming in the candlelight. Cesare cannot help the part of him that grins inwardly, seeing Lucrezia take as much pleasure as he does in testing Micheletto’s control.

Lucrezia continues, “I should like to feel you spend inside me, you know.”

Cesare bites his split lip open again.

“I thought your brother might not wish it, my lady.” Micheletto’s voice remains improbably level, though the muscles of his stomach tighten, standing in relief for a moment.

Now, for the first time, Lucrezia looks over to Cesare, and he—he is exposed, unprepared, flushed and sweating and helplessly, painfully hard, his hand still seizing desperately on his thigh.

“Jealous brother,” Lucrezia says quietly, “Is it so?”

Cesare wants to insist that he said nothing of the sort—in truth, he did not—but damn Micheletto: he is right, and Cesare can hardly deny it, tasting blood as he does at the notion.

Lucrezia must read it on his face. “Would you have me first, then?”

Everything Cesare has thought, has wanted, as he watched them: it all comes crashing together in a moment. “Not first,” he says slowly, and asks, “Do you trust me, sis?” even as he looks to Micheletto.

“What manner of question is that?” Lucrezia says, though it is a touch breathless. “Yes, brother, I do. And you,” she adds, turning to rest a hand on Micheletto’s chest.

Micheletto’s eyes meet Cesare’s at last, and Cesare knows they share the same thought: what they can do, and what they cannot. So Cesare stands to approach the bed from Lucrezia’s other side, stripping himself swiftly bare as he does, heedless of both her and Micheletto’s eyes on him. He spares barely a thought to hope his hair covers the mark he feels still at the crook of his neck.

When Cesare stretches out beside Lucrezia, she rolls toward him immediately, and he draws her into a kiss; her lips are wet, salty with sweat and a faint earthiness that must be the taste of Micheletto’s mouth. _Oh, God_ , Cesare thinks again, and then puts that thought far and firmly out of his mind.

In Cesare’s arms, Lucrezia jolts, and he looks over her shoulder to see Micheletto run a hand smoothly down her back, curving over her buttock. “Ah,” Lucrezia breathes, looking into Cesare’s eyes.

“Will you have it?” Cesare asks, breathless himself.

“Oh, yes,” Lucrezia murmurs. She lifts her leg over Cesare’s to spread herself to Micheletto’s exploring hand. Cesare presses his lips to her forehead, watching Micheletto sit up, his fingers trailing down her leg, keeping a gentle hold on her ankle as he leans off the edge of the bed. He comes back with a vial, oil, and Cesare has to wonder what Micheletto foresaw—whether Micheletto intended it for this or—or for him.

The thought stirs Cesare’s heart back to hammering in his ears. He is playing with fire, he realizes; outside, the sun is setting, and perhaps he is drawing too near under it. Can Lucrezia fail to notice how he responds to Micheletto, if they share her body, her flesh?

Now Micheletto is watching Cesare in turn. When Cesare strokes down Lucrezia’s front, Micheletto mirrors him, so their fingers graze between her legs: Micheletto’s hand slick with oil, and Cesare’s with her. Lucrezia giggles, and then gasps when Micheletto’s hand moves again, pushing just a fingertip into her at the rear. This time, it is Cesare who follows, sliding two fingers into her at the front. She closes her eyes and shudders when he crooks his fingers, so he kisses her eyelid, her nose, her cheek. “Is it good, sis?”

“It is strange,” Lucrezia says, and her forehead is wrinkled, but she is smiling, just an inward quirk of her lips.

Cesare kisses her again, deeper, tasting the soft sounds she makes as his hand and Micheletto’s move in tandem within her. If he focuses, he can feel motion through her inner walls, can press his fingertips gently to Micheletto’s, drawing a deeper noise of surprise from Lucrezia’s chest.

With Lucrezia already once satisfied, still warm and relaxed with it—and with Micheletto no doubt hotter and sorer even than Cesare—it is not long before the two of them catch each other’s eyes again over her shoulder. Cesare nods, and slowly, Micheletto slides his fingers free of her.

Pushing away from Cesare, Lucrezia cranes her neck back to watch Micheletto. Around the ivory sculpture of her throat and shoulder, Cesare sees only the rhythmic flex of Micheletto’s upper arm, the taut line of his neck; he can but imagine Micheletto’s hand around his cock, Lucrezia’s entranced expression, and it makes him ache anew, a deep throb from chest to groin.

Lucrezia turns back and buries her face in Cesare’s neck, her breath a wash against his skin. “Easy, sis,” he whispers, stroking her hair, holding her to him. Now that she is leaning forwards, he can watch Micheletto align himself behind her, the hard gold of his hands and blood-pink of his cock settling against her pale curves. Cesare reaches down to pull her thigh farther up over his own, so she lies half on top of him, her sex pressed damp against his hip.

Again, Micheletto looks to Cesare, holding himself still, frozen just at the moment of readiness, and Cesare never wants to let this image go, yet he cannot stand it any longer. Again, he nods.

Micheletto sinks into Lucrezia with the single, smooth slide that Cesare remembers, that memory strong enough to make his own muscles flex in sympathy, his cock pulsing when Lucrezia moans open-mouthed against his throat. Her arms clutch around him, fingernails in the skin of his back, and he clasps her tighter in response, as though he could feel what she feels, as though they could become one, if he could only pull her close enough.

Behind Lucrezia, Micheletto is still again, yet now his eyes are afire, locked on Cesare’s, scorching him raw as lightning-struck ground.

“Is it good?” Cesare asks, a desperate rush, and feels that his words speak to Micheletto as well, though he knows not what they mean to him. “Sis, is it?”

Lucrezia arches against Cesare, rocking herself between him and Micheletto. Micheletto’s eyes burn ever darker. “Yes,” she says, with panting confusion. “Yes, I want—” She breaks off, her hand coming to grip Cesare’s cock, and then makes a noise of frustration as she tries to reposition herself.

“Easy, sis,” Cesare says again, taking her hand. He moves his own to rub slow circles over her sex until she relaxes, her breath slowing, deepening. “Come.” He shifts onto his back, setting both hands on her hips to guide her over him, glad now of Micheletto’s balance as much as of his control to achieve the movement without dislodging himself.

The awkward interlocking of all their legs is inevitable, Cesare supposes, but now Lucrezia can settle over him, the head of his cock just at her entrance. She reaches down again to take him in hand, and—

And Cesare looks up to see her eyes open, her gaze on his throat, where his hair has fallen back on the pillow. For a moment, he cannot think, as her fingers leap up to trace the mark there; then his own gaze goes to Micheletto, even as he curses himself for a fool, thinks he might still have managed some concealment—but now his eyes are on Micheletto, and he cannot move them; he is trembling all over again, pinned under Lucrezia’s delicate touch, under the heat of Micheletto’s stare.

“Oh,” Lucrezia breathes, as Cesare lies frozen. “Oh, Micheletto, do you fuck him like this too?”

Cesare sees Micheletto’s hand tighten on her hip, sees him swallow as though he prepares to speak—but his silence is answer enough. Lucrezia says again, “ _Oh_ ,” more a moan this time, and sinks suddenly down, rubbing herself against Cesare and shocking an exhale from his gut, the hot sting of humiliation in his chest mutating halfway back to lust.

Lucrezia caresses Cesare’s chest, his stomach, down to encircle his cock yet again, and he can do nothing but stare up at her, at Micheletto—a pagan goddess and her consort, perhaps, and Cesare a helpless worshipper with their swelling forms above him. _Blasphemy, blasphemy, blasphemy_ , but what else can he think when Lucrezia looks at him, looks into him, and murmurs, clear and low: “I should like to see that.” Even as she says it, she is guiding him into her at last.

A thin noise tears out between Cesare’s teeth, desperate heat and prostrate shame driving the blood to his head, driving each other higher as Lucrezia opens slowly to him. Again in that soft voice, she asks, “Would you allow me?”

“Anything,” Cesare pants, the words ready on his lips without a thought. “Anything, anything for you, always.” He means both of them, and it should terrify him, but nothing has ever felt surer.

Micheletto’s hands tense still further on Lucrezia’s hips. “I cannot,” he says, choked, “I cannot, my lady, please,” and if even Micheletto’s restraint is shattering so, then they are surely all to spiral down into the flames together. “ _Please_ ,” he says again, and—

—Lucrezia drops to her elbows over Cesare, and says, “ _Yes_ ,” and—

—Cesare cannot move with the weight atop him, the entanglement of their limbs, but Micheletto and Lucrezia move for him, and—

—then they are all of them afire.

It is only moments before Micheletto buries his face in Lucrezia’s shoulder with a raw cry, and Cesare can feel the pulse of his climax through Lucrezia as his body presses her into Cesare, as she grinds herself down on him and claws his shoulders bloody. “Brother,” she gasps, and he grasps for her, surely tight enough to bruise, pulling her down and arching as deep into her as he can.

“Sis,” Cesare gasps in answer, “Sis, please.” He pulls her down on him again, feels her legs beginning to shake, and then he is groaning, “Oh, God,” his voice breaking high as he throws his head back and convulses with the surge that takes him. The throb of it is molten, torturous, endless, so he is sobbing in earnest by the time he spends himself to the last, still clutching at Lucrezia where she lies on his chest.

When Cesare recovers his thoughts, he finds himself faintly amused that it took them all longer to fall back to consciousness than it did to reach their peaks at the first. Micheletto pulls slowly out of Lucrezia, and she wrinkles her nose, even as she shifts her hips so Cesare, too, slips free of her. She does not budge, though, only cuddles closer into his chest, and he sighs, stroking her hair as he looks to Micheletto.

Micheletto meets Cesare’s eyes, more readily than ever he has before. There is hesitation to his voice, but none in his hand reaching out to rest on Lucrezia’s back: “You are very beautiful, my lady.” A longer pause, and then he continues, “Both of you.”

Cesare rests his hand atop Micheletto’s, feels Lucrezia smile against his chest. “Is it as you wished, sis?”

Lucrezia murmurs happily, “Twice and more,” and Cesare cannot help his laughter; even Micheletto’s lips stretch in a wondering little smile. After a moment, she lifts her head. “I mean you to keep that promise, you know.”

“Ah,” Cesare says, suddenly dry of mouth, but what else can he say than: “I mean to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments fuel more filth and nonsense like this. Feed me.
> 
> Also, I’m not saying there's going to be a sequel, but...okay, I’m saying that, obviously. No fixed date yet, but I’m trying to keep up the momentum. Watch this space. (Comments might motivate me to write faster. Just sayin’.)


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